While many recent news articles have claimed the recession has sent divorce rates plummeting, it's not quite the case. Most people may not be able to afford a divorce and the rates of a divorce lawyer, but some people still can.
According to the ABA Journal, many people who still have money are finding now is the time for divorce. As assets are declining in value, wealthy clients are divorcing now while there is less to property to divide between the couple.
Clients are finding that a divorce in a slow economy can help protect from losing too much in divorce.
News stories have told the tale time and time again of how divorcing couples are now fighting over who gets stuck with the house, instead of who gets the family home. But divorce lawyers are saying that now is a good time for people who want to keep particular property and can afford it to divorce.
“This is a great time for wealthy people to get divorced because their assets are down,” Lynne Gold-Bikin told the National Law Journal. “So if you want to keep the house, perfect time. If you want to keep the 401(k), perfect time.”
Gold-Bikin leads the Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby family law practice. The firm, which is in Philadelphia, is seeing clients pour in.
Although some law firms report an increase in divorce cases amongst wealthy clients, some attorney firms are saying they are only seeing an increase in the complication of each case. It’s a difficult time trying to figure out the how to a set a value on assets for divorce cases that started before the economy crashed.
“The worst cases are where we have been fighting for extended periods of time, and what we’re fighting over has been lost in the stock market,” Susan Moss of the Chemtob Moss Forman Talbert law firm in New York told the National Law Journal.
Erin Kelley
erin@totalattorneys.com
Divorce lawyer
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